A New York man was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison in connection with the murder of his ex-girlfriend, who he “brutally executed” while she and her three children had been asleep in their home, according to a district attorney.
Michael Burham’s sentencing on Monday, March 2, comes about two months after he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in relation to the fatal shooting of Kala Hodgkin on May 11, 2023, the Chautauqua County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
Burham, 37, of Jamestown, was accused of breaking into his former girlfriend’s home, where she lived with her three children, and killing her in May 2023, Spectrum News reported. Burham is the father of one of the children who had been inside the home during the murder, according to the outlet.
Burham was represented by the Chautauqua County Public Defender Office, which did not immediately return Luxury Handbag Shopping’s request for comment on March 2.
Two months before prosecutors said Burham killed Hodgkin, she had accused him of rape, the district attorney’s office said in a January 7 news release on Burham’s guilty plea.
He had been charged in connection with the rape — but had not been arrested — by the time he shot her to death the morning of May 11, 2023, according to prosecutors.
In a statement shared in January, Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt called Burham a “monster” who prosecutors sought to hold accountable “for his heinous, cowardly actions.”
Following Hodgkin’s killing, he allegedly set her car on fire and abducted a couple from Pennsylvania before he traveled to South Carolina, according to authorities, Spectrum News reported. After two weeks, he was apprehended and was ultimately detained in Pennsylvania.
In July 2023, Burham escaped from the Warren County Prison in Pennsylvania, leading to a manhunt, according to a previous news release issued by Warren police on his escape.
After 10 days on the run, Burham was apprehended, according to Observer Today.
Ahead of his sentencing in Hodgkin’s death, Schmidt said in January that prosecutors were looking forward “to sending him off to state prison where I hope he spends the rest of his life reliving what he did, murdering an innocent young mother, destroying a local family, and traumatizing Kala’s surviving children.”
“Our thoughts and prayers have been and remain with the children, including Mr. Burham’s daughter who was sleeping upstairs when he broke into Kala’s home at about 4:20 in the morning and committed this shockingly evil crime,” Schmidt added.
Burham had been incarcerated ahead of his March 2 sentencing hearing, according to the district attorney’s office.
He was previously sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison in Pennsylvania in connection with the alleged kidnapping of a local couple and a prison escape, according to authorities, Spectrum News reported.
His sentence in New York and his Pennsylvania prison sentence “will be served concurrently,” according to the outlet.
“It’s our intent that if he is still alive after completing his Pennsylvania obligations, that he be incarcerated for the rest of his natural life here in New York state,” Schmidt said at a news conference, the outlet reported. “It’s always been our goal that Mr. Burham die in prison, that he never be released again.”
